López Obrador's reform of Infonavit revives the desire for accessible housing for workers

Access to decent and affordable—that is, affordable—housing for workers has been one of the great desires of the labor and democratic movements.

Job insecurity, the real estate

boom

and the transformation of housing into a commodity (instead of a human right) have made it impossible for this claim to become a reality.

In Mexico, as in other countries, workers suffer from the circumstance of having low salaries in the face of an increasingly expensive housing supply.

This produces the paradox that there are empty houses and homeless people, as well as many people living overcrowded in the peripheries, far from their places of study or work.

Although the Institute of the National Housing Fund for Workers (Infonavit) has existed in Mexico since 1972, the State's efforts to guarantee workers decent and accessible homes have been insufficient.

The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has sent a reform to Congress in which he proposes that Infonavit become directly a housing builder, an important change in the nature of the Institute, which until now has served only as administrator of the housing fund to which employers are obliged to make periodic contributions.

Another of the proposed modifications is for Infonavit to rent housing for workers at controlled prices, unrelated to the costs of the real estate market.

This reform was included in the package of initiatives sent by the Executive on February 5.

The opposition parties have announced that they will give their votes to the ruling party to approve this constitutional reform.

Specialists warn that the benefits of the initiative would only reach salaried and independent employees, and would leave out millions of workers in the informal sector.

New approach to housing

The Executive's proposal suggests that Infonavit not only give workers cheap and sufficient loans, but also build housing so that they can buy or rent it in a "social income scheme."

The worker with at least one year of social security contributions will be considered to rent the home of which Infonavit is the owner.

The monthly payment that he will pay cannot exceed 30% of his salary.

If the worker rents the home for 10 years, he will have the right to buy it.

Workers with more seniority in contributions and who do not have their own home will have preferential access to this scheme.

Infonavit will grant credits not only for the purchase of housing, but also for improvements or construction from the ground up.

The initiative recognizes that housing is a factor that reduces inequalities, in addition to providing security, strengthening social cohesion and triggering economic activity.

It highlights that, in five decades, Infonavit has granted almost 13 million housing loans, and that it currently finances almost 47% of the homes acquired nationwide.

“Even with the achievements achieved, the working class demands that there be greater availability of affordable housing,” the document states.

Houses in the La Alvorada social housing development, on the outskirts of Mexico City, in 2007. Miguel Tovar (AP)

In 21% of homes in Mexico lives a person who has “unmet housing needs,” that is, requires renting, buying or building a house, states López Obrador's initiative based on official figures.

In addition, 58% of homes need construction, expansion or improvement.

The document indicates that this lag is the result of the dynamics of housing production at the national level in recent years.

On the one hand, residential housing construction has remained 15% below levels prior to the Covid-19 pandemic;

On the other hand, financing for housing construction has become more expensive (in 2023 rates above 14% were reached).

“The combination that results from low production, an expensive financial market to finance construction and high inflation environments at a global level that have affected the prices of inputs, mark a situation of slow growth in housing production and high prices to acquire it. ”, explains the proposal.

“For this reason, it is imperative to provide Infonavit with powers in construction matters to strengthen the housing supply for the benefit of working people,” he adds.

The document states that 16% of homes in Mexico are rented.

51% of people who rent it do so because they do not have enough resources to buy it;

Only a minority do it for the convenience of being close to their workplace.

“One of the complaints of working people is that they do not have housing available at fair prices and they do not have formal rental options either.

In the case of the working class, this reality excludes them from the exercise of their housing rights despite their contribution to Infonavit,” the proposal says.

He adds that in the city of Austria (Vienna) and in the Recoleta commune (Santiago, Chile) social income schemes already operate.

In the first case, more than 70% of existing homes have some controlled rent scheme and tenant protections;

In the second, the social rent does not exceed 25% of the families' income.

A house for workers

María Silvia Emanuelli, coordinator in Latin America of the Habitat International Coalition (HIC), maintains that López Obrador's proposal represents a brake on the neoliberal housing policy that has been in force in Mexico for the last three decades. .

The greatest exponents of this model, she affirms, were the PAN presidents Vicente Fox (2000-2006) and Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), in whose Administrations 10 million homes were built, many financed with Infonavit credits.

These “social interest” houses, as they were known, had something in common: they were tiny and fragile, and were located on the outskirts, often in areas without water, light and electricity services, hours away from cities. .

Many families were forced to abandon those houses, despite the debt acquired to pay them.

At the beginning of the current six-year term, the López Obrador Government estimated that around 650,000 homes were abandoned.

As of last year, about 70,000 of those houses had been recovered, 10% of the total.

The INEGI showed a more bleak scenario.

According to the 2020 Population Census, there were more than 6 million abandoned houses in Mexico, a figure that represented 14% of the total number of homes in the country.

Almost naturally, the ghost neighborhoods became a focus of insecurity and violence, as criminal groups took over the empty places.

Abandoned house in an Infonavit development in Huejotzingo.Alejandra Rajal

“There is a change in this reform proposal,” says Emanuelli in an interview.

“It is important that the State once again be responsible for housing and put a stop to commercialization.”

The specialist points out that for many years neoliberal recipes that involved the dismantling of the State were applied.

“The objective was to build a lot of housing, small in size, of poor quality, remote, inadequate for the salaried sector, enriching the private sector and taking State participation out of the equation,” she explains.

“This has been identified as the first phase of the financialization of housing in the country, that is, the entry of stock market resources focused on housing construction, which then becomes a commodity.”

Emanuelli suggests that, apart from the positive aspects of the reform, it has not been clear what resources the State will have available for the construction of public housing, nor if measures will be taken beforehand to control the price of land, which tends to increase in price.

“How will the State obtain sufficient resources to be able to build if the price of land continues to be subject to the market?” He questions.

Carlos Velázquez, general director of Infonavit, points out that López Obrador's reform proposal is consistent with other measures implemented by the Government in terms of housing.

For example, in this six-year term it was approved to freeze the amount of monthly payments that workers who have a housing loan must pay, and to give discounts to those who cover 90% of their debt;

It was also approved that Infonavit can grant more than one loan to each worker.

“With this reform, renting is included in the Constitution for the first time as a form of the right of every worker to access housing.

Secondly, the mandate that Infonavit already has—providing loans—is complemented by the possibility of being able to build directly and put these homes for rent,” he explains in an interview.

The official criticizes the policy that prevailed during the six-year terms of Fox and Calderón in terms of housing, “a purely speculative, mercantilist vision,” in which construction companies such as Geo, Urbi, Homex benefited, which ultimately declared bankruptcy. and left thousands of families helpless.

“These companies bought land reserves on the outskirts of the cities, very cheap, and developed housing with the concept that the worker will sleep in one place and work in another,” he explains.

“Infonavit, as a State institution, has to ask itself the question of what housing the Mexican working class deserves.

The response that the private sector gave to Fox and Calderón demonstrates the extent of its contempt for the working class.

We must imagine that things can be different for workers,” he adds.

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